Boulder harbors hidden, historic trout farm

Acquaintances of Michael Thompson have referred to the grounds he calls home as "the place lost in time."

Thompson's home occupies a place of some intrigue in Boulder. It has not one, but two addresses, one on Arapahoe Avenue and another on Lincoln Place. However, it's nearly invisible from both streets.

And yet, there it is in the middle of town, secreted well away down a narrow driveway, a low-slung, single-story ramshackle structure fronted on the east side by seven concrete channels fed by frosty water flowing down from Crystal Spring.

And at all times, three of the seven channels are filled with trout.

Thompson, 57, is caretaker of the facility known as Boulder Fish and Game Club, where the primary, year-round mission is raising rainbow-cutthroat-hybrid trout to stock the nearby Evert Pierson Kids' Fishing Pond along Boulder Creek.

A full-time electrician for Bedell Electric at Frasier Meadows Manor, Thompson lives rent-free at the trout rearing center in exchange for 24-7, 365-days-a-year maintenance of the grounds and care of the fish. He is joined in his labors by club president Paul Kuehnel.

Thompson knows he's far off the grid -- despite being situated two blocks from the Boulder Municipal Building, one block from the Boulder Public Library and, when the sun is low in the morning, squarely in the shadow of the adjacent 11-story Presbyterian Manor apartments.

"I had a guy not long ago tell me, 'I grew up in Boulder, and I know there are no trout runs in the middle of town,'" Thompson said Friday.

There is one, and there has been -- for 85 years.

College kids, raccoons pose challenges

The nonprofit Boulder Fish and Game Club was founded in 1908 and pledged to promote fishing and hunting in the region. After the Prohibition effectively killed the Crystal Springs Brewing and Ice Co., at 11th Street and Arapahoe, the outdoorsmen acquired their present-day property -- previously the site of a small recreational lake where ice was cut during the winter -- and rights to the spring's water.

Boulder Fish and Game Club caretaker Michael Thompson stands next to the trout rearing ponds Friday.
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JEREMY PAPASSO
)

"On some winter mornings when I'm out here breaking up ice on the trout runs, I think I can hear the old ice cutters laughing at me," Thompson said.

In keeping with the lost-in-time ambience of the trout rearing ponds, Thompson can't exactly put his finger on the year he moved in as caretaker -- acquiring as his assistant for several years a large dog named Ralph passed on by the previous caretaker. Thompson can say only that was sometime in the 1980s.

In 1996, whirling disease struck the facility. It was borne by a new delivery of young trout from Colorado Parks and Wildlife, which donates about 2,000 fish each year. The facility was placed under quarantine while the rearing ponds were cleaned and sterilized. The quarantine was lifted in 1998.

"We had to prove that we didn't have whirling disease -- even though the (state) division provided us with it. We had to prove to them that we didn't have it," Thompson said.

"When the fish came in here, I said, 'I don't know what's going on, but this is behavior that I've never seen.' ... They're doing one pinwheel going this way, another pinwheel going that way. ... We had, like, four separate pinwheels going down this run, each one going in the opposite direction, like a trout ballet. It's cooler than hell, but it's like, that's not normal behavior."

Beyond monitoring the flow of the water -- a chill 53 degrees even in the height of summer -- and scattering the surface of the ponds with floating protein-rich trout chow each evening, Thompson has other concerns. Most notable among them, he said, is the college kids.

Improving a perimeter fence, buttressing it with a heavy green screen of Virginia creeper and stringing electrified wire are among the tactics he has employed to keep wayward night-time revelers coming and going from University Hill from stumbling through, throwing rocks into the trout "raceways," or spawning other mayhem.

"I have to educate another batch of them every four years," Thompson said, adding that the charged wires are quite painful.

Rivaling those issues, Thompson said, is the headache presented by marauding raccoons, and birds such as kingfishers and even the occasional blue heron. The strategy for fending them off differs little from what he employs on CU students.

"I managed to have a whole season of no raccoons getting in because I did a better job of setting the wires," said Thompson, the accent of his hometown of Boston periodically surfacing in his speech.

The Boulder Fish and Game Club just received its annual contribution of about 2,000 trout from the state at the start of this month. They'll be reared over the winter, in time to start stocking the kids' fishing pond nearby at Sixth Street and Canyon Boulevard next spring.

The fishing area was originally CU gravel pits, converted to a pond by the club in 1949, according to city of Boulder spokeswoman Jennifer Bray.

Typically, 120 or so "veterans," larger fish of up to 18 inches in length, are transported there annually from the club specifically for the kids' fishing derby as part of the Boulder Creek Festival on Memorial Day weekend. Subsequently, one or two stockings each month supplement the pond's population throughout the summer.

The other regular activity for the club these days is sending its volunteers to assist Colorado Parks and Wildlife in stocking high-country lakes in the Indian Peaks and James Peak wilderness areas with native greenback cutthroat trout.

'Spirits are here, from everybody'

Asked how long he'll be doing this, Thompson said quickly, "Probably as long as I breathe."

Kuehnel, the club president, said Thompson is his "go-to guy" and called him "the fish whisperer."

"Michael has the ability to look into those fish runs, and he can tell you how the fish are doing just by looking at them, by how they're spaced, how they're swimming and by how they're acting."

His labors, Thompson said, are really for the kids. More than once he has had the experience of a middle-aged (or older) man recount memories of catching his first fish at the Boulder kids' pond, and now bringing his own children -- or grandchildren -- to fish there.

"To see a kid ... just jumping up and doing their little happy dances that they do, and it doesn't matter the size of the fish, just the fact that they caught a fish, you know, it's just neat to see. And it kinda gets me every now and then."

Thompson recalled excelling in history at the trade school he attended long ago in Massachusetts. And his respect for club founder Peter Johnson, Johnson's descendents and many others who have shepherded the club's legacy before him is deeply ingrained.

"Spirits are here, from everybody. I have buried so many good men over the years. I know more underground than above ground right now," Thompson said.

"History is made every day," he added. "People don't realize this, and I feel I'm a part of it here more than anywhere else. So, I'm at home."

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